Abstract:

Sarcosaphagous flies are frequently found on dead bodies shortly after death. Species within this family differ in their developmental times, so an accurate identification of every species is necessary for the correct estimation of the post mortem interval (PMI). Identification of specimens is traditionally performed using their morphological features. The morphological similarity of sarcosaphagous flies especially their eggs, larva and pupae, poses a challenge for forensic entomologists. Therefore a molecular method was established for species identification. In this study, A 278 base pair region of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) coding for cytochrome oxidase subunit one (COⅠ) was investigated for identification of the following forensically important species of sarcosaphagous flies from western China, including Ophyra capensis (Wiedemann), Chrysomya megacephala(Fabricius), Lucilia sericata (Meigen), Lucilia cuprina (Wiedemann)， and Boettcherisca peregrina (RobineauDesvoidy).  The results indicated that the COⅠ region sequenced allowed identification of major species, providing separation of congeneric species with high support. In contrast, the data could not distinguish taxa from the same species group, i.e. the L. sericata and L. cuprina groups because of low sequence divergence.

Key words: Sarcosaphagous flies, species identification, mitochondrial DNA, cytochrome oxidaseI